“I’ll do it,” said Randy, delighted to think that she could in any way be useful to her little sister, and so well did she amuse her that in the middle of the sixth fairy tale Prue was sound asleep.
As soon as Mrs. Weston had seen the little foot, she had given it a bath in hot water, bound securely about it a hot bandage, and told little Prue that she must be quite still.
“I will, if Randy will read to me,” said Prue. So Randy read story after story, until the little sister was asleep.
Randy sat beside her, intending to read to her again if she awoke, but Prue had cried with the aching foot until she was very tired, so she slept soundly. Once she stirred, and thrust her chubby hand under her head, murmuring as she did so. Randy bent over her, to hear what she said.
“The big stones squeezed my foot, so course it wasn’t my Randy did it,” murmured Prue. “My Randy wouldn’t do such a thing to me. My Randy’s just about right always and she—” but here her voice faltered and that which commenced in a sentence ended in a sigh. A bright tear glistened in Randy’s gray eyes. How lovingly little Prue held her above the possibility of anything wrong.
“I must try hard to be as good as Prue thinks I am,” thought Randy, and, bending, she kissed the little one ever so gently so as not to awaken her; “for,” thought Randy, “while she sleeps she doesn’t know her foot aches, and when she wakes I’ll read or do anything she wishes me to, to amuse her.”
And Randy kept her promise. The injury, although not serious, was quite painful, and Prue declared that Randy was “’most an angel,” so patient and entertaining was she, reading the same story over and over again if it chanced to please her.
In a few days Prue was able to be about, and Randy was every bit as happy as her little sister, to see that the swelling had disappeared and the wee foot back to its usual size. There was one story with which Prue seemed the most pleased and which she wished oftenest to hear.
That was the story of the “Sleeping Beauty,” but it mattered not how many times she heard it, she never could tell it straight.
One day Prue’s mother said that the little girl would be wise if she rested her foot all the afternoon. “I’ll sit still on the ‘lunge,’” said Prue, “if you’ll listen to a bea-utiful story called the ‘Sleeping Beauty.’ I guess I can tell it ’most right; do you want to hear it, mother?”